In Paris in the late Fifties the Beat Generation writer William Burroughs and his sidekick Brion Gysin developed the cut-up method. It involved taking a piece of finished text and cutting it into pieces – then rearranging those pieces to create a new text or work of art. Burroughs wrote that: “When you cut into the present the future leaks out.” The cut-up had a profound effect on music, writing, painting, and film. Devotees of the cut-up include David Bowie, Radiohead, and Kathy Acker. In addition to bringing together new work by new people, CUT UP! also salutes some better known 20th Century voices who kept the spirit of Burroughs and Gysin alive.

CUT UP! An Anthology Inspired by the Cut-Up Method of William S. Burroughs & Brion Gysin.

Edited by Joe Ambrose & A.D. Hitchin

‘When you cut into the present the future leaks out.’ – William Burroughs

The cut-up method was ‘invented’ by the artist Brion Gysin and popularized by his friend, William Burroughs. It had roots in Dadaism, whose Tristan Tzara threatened to create a poem by drawing random words from a hat.Creating a cut-up involves taking a given text and cutting it into single words, sentences, or paragraphs. The cut-up texts are then rearranged by the artist – the creator of the new work.

Anton, a born sadist, a philosopher of psychosexual visions as an act against the world that tries to spit him out; a charlatan of provocative yet violent intellectual discourse that will devour all of whom are against his very nature.

Jeremiah, an Afghan vet, distraught by his comrades’ deaths during conflict, he returns to civilised life although struggles to conform to the consumerist society. He loathes modern society so in act of existential suffering, he enters the sleazy underworld to try and find meaning in the will of his transgressions.

There, he meets the Sadean misanthropist, Anton, where both of their worlds collide. There’s only one resolution and it lies in an unobtainable place.

The Origin of Manias is a transgressive journey into the psyche of troubled minds that mirrors the banal horrors of society. A microcosmic exploration of war, religion, sexuality and death; The Origin of Manias is the rigor mortis of boundaries; it’s atrophy of the flesh – unapologetic and incendiary.